17 ms·

Cloud9 Acquired by Amazon

627 points by welder 10y ago

enitihas 10y ago
Does anyone know the reasons behind this acquisition?
- kimmshibal 10y ago
  AWS
- sudhirj 10y ago
  Probably a play by AWS to have a full IDE in the cloud, maybe with auto deploy to lambda or ECS.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  > Does anyone know the reasons behind this acquisition? One can make guesses: - expanding into new verticals - potentially "enabling" Cloud9 users to become users of other AWS services - world domination!
- KuiN 10y ago
  The current editor for AWS Lambda functions is nothing to write home about and has some really severe limitations; for example you're unable to edit any code that uses more than 1 file (that has to be uploaded in a zip every time). Having a high quality editor built into Lambda would make it so much easier to work with.
  - maratd 10y ago
    This doesn't make sense? The editor is open source. You can install it on your computer right now. They even provide instructions on how to do it. https://github.com/c9/core https://github.com/c9/core They can implement it without buying the company. Even if the license doesn't allow it, the license for ACE surely does and ACE is the meat of the editor. https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace Maybe they want the team because they want to move the product in a certain direction? I don't know.
    - purplerabbit 10y ago
      He means the AWS Console editor for Lambda functions.
petercooper 10y ago
Once fully integrated with AWS, this could offer a rather exciting, low friction way to work on the platform. Using Cloud9 to build, test, and deploy Lambda functions from a single interface with all the auth stuff dealt with automatically.. you could have some powerful APIs running in the cloud very quickly. (Maybe there's even a play for getting this stuff into the hands of non-engineering employees. Build the "Excel" of APIs, if you will?)
- maxaf 10y ago
  The last thing this world needs is mission-critical software edited willy-nilly through a "convenient" web browser interface. We as an industry can barely put our pants on in the morning on the best of days, and now this.
  - FLGMwt 10y ago
    I'll counter with the suggestion that nothing about how you access an editor should impact your SCM process. Cloud9 has a terminal to run SCM tools and a light-featured Git UI if that's your thing.
    - maxaf 10y ago
      You're right - in an ideal world. Somehow the drive for adoption and market share seems to counter such common sense, resulting in the "get started quick" camp running production systems.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ebbv 10y ago
    Hopefully your C9 workspace is on a development server instead of on a production one....
  - ben_jones 10y ago
    He or she who has not edited production code or configurations with vim/emacs/nano cast the first stone.
metaos 10y ago
the first time i tried node.js was using cloud9. what a sad sad day to see them fall onto the black list.
arahaya 10y ago
The best cloud IDE now with the biggest cloud service. little scary but very interesting at the same time
- jecyll 10y ago
  Amazon works coniniously to become the provider for everything you can imagine
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    Even the best job? Because working for them was the worst work environment I ever experienced in 15 years of employment as a software development engineer. Amazon may have some cheap prices and their customer service has the margins available to offer refunds/replacements quickly. But that all is easy guise. Amazon is rotten inside. Each product team does whatever it wants. So how long can the exterior hold a toxic spill? Those AWS dashboard icons look really nice. Makes everything look so organized and contiguous. But each of those services is done in different languages, different frameworks, by different teams, with whatever crap will hold the leaks and terrible patchwork programming by their average employee who will on average, stay less than a year. The churn is real.
    - jwoah12 10y ago
      Not sure what team you were on, but in my time at Amazon I never saw a company whose teams were more in-sync in terms of process, tools, frameworks, languages, etc. Say what you will about the work environment, but it's saying something that with the churn you mention (which is real), they are still able to deliver consistently. It's a well-oiled machine.
      - goldenkey 10y ago
        I worked for AWS. I wont say much more. The average employee churn stats speak for themselves. Amazon burns folks out. Uses them up. Not like the valley at all. Leadership principles [1] door desks, bezos cult. [1] https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/p34qgjcv93n37yd https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/p34qgjcv93n37yd
spriggan3 10y ago
I hope they won't be shut down in 6 month , C9 is handy when it comes to trying new techs quickly.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  C9 only adds to existing AWS offerings. Don't see a reason that it'd be shut down.
  - hueving 10y ago
    If it's basically an acquihire then that's exactly what happens. Remember sparrow?
    - 0xmohit 10y ago
      The point was that C9 offerings are likely to continue. The branding might change.
      - Cederfjard 10y ago
        That was your original point, but the person replying to you made a counterargument to your assertion that you don't see any reason for them to discontinue the service - that maybe they are after the team and their knowledge, rather than the product. Maybe Amazon want them working on something else.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      Google seems more aggressive about shuttering acquired businesses than Amazon.
    - discodave 10y ago
      Remember Twitch, IMDB, Zappos... Amazon doesn't have a history of aqui-hires. Sure, they are getting some talent but since there's no obvious AWS competitor to C9 they would be crazy to shut it down.
- snuxoll 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
amelius 10y ago
From their homepage: > Cloud9 combines a powerful online code editor with a full Ubuntu workspace in the cloud This is the first thing I see on loading their website. Is this their main selling point? Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It works perfectly fine on my local machine, and I could even automate syncing if I wanted. Also, I could just ssh into my server and start an editor there. > Build WordPress, Django and Rails websites and test in 300+ browser/OS combinations. Is this automated? Because who would want to test 300+ browser/OS combinations manually?
- vertex-four 10y ago
  > Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? I have a handful of devices which I like programming from - I use Eclipse Che (the tech behind Codenvy Beta, similar to Cloud9) for some of my projects and I have exactly the same environment on all of them. There's other ways to accomplish this - sharing dotfiles between machines and using Docker for environments - but a cloud IDE makes it a bit easier and less hassle to set up.
- czechdeveloper 10y ago
  > Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It does not HAVE to be. But it is another option and great one at certain situations. Such as showing someone how to start programming, working on small project without having to deal with setup time etc. I really like it actually. It's not meant to be replacement of local machine IDEs.
  - ksafranski 10y ago
    I don't know how it's "not meant to be a replacement of local machine IDEs", I think that depends on the person using it. I've been on Cloud9 for all my work (day job and freelance) for several years now and honestly can't imagine not using a web-based IDE.
    - czechdeveloper 10y ago
      You are right. I was thinking about my previous statement later on and realized, that it is meant and is able to fully replace standard IDEs. What I meant was more like "you can keep your IDE if you like it" type of think.
hyperdeficit 10y ago
I really hope that the Cloud9 service keeps running, and maintains the free version that it currently provides. I have been using Cloud9 with the Michael Hartl Rails Tutorial to teach new programmers the basics of programming with Ruby and Rails and it has greatly reduced the friction for them to start learning. In previous classes we had the students setup a Ruby and Rails environment on their own systems and not only did that take multiple sessions to get setup, but then we were dealing with environment differences that took the focus away from the basics of learning Ruby nearly every session.
- jozan 10y ago
  Wouldn't virtual machine basically do the same thing? I've taken some classes where teacher gave us an image where everything was already installed and configured. Everything went smoothly. However, Cloud9 is much more convenient since it runs entirely on browser but VM solution could work in case C9 discontinues its free tier.
  - jswny 10y ago
    Agreed. In a lot of my college courses, the professors provide a VM which is completely set up for development. That means that anyone who just wants to start programming can use the VM while everyone else who wants to setup their local environment can do that. I think it's a great solution.
    - preek 10y ago
      I'm a lecturer myself and am curious: How do your lecturers deal with the situation that students have at least three different operating systems (LINUX, Mac, Windows)? Setting up a VM will make 2/3rds cringe in my experience - setting up three VMs is a lot of work.
      - jswny 10y ago
        I'd say that most students running Linux opt to install their own development environment so installing the VM for them really isn't an issue. Either way, it's much easier for the professor to spend a class showing people how to install VirtualBox, and then the class VM than showing them how to install an entire development environment locally. Here's how it works: the professor prepares an Ubuntu VM with the entire development environment set up inside it, and then just provides the image link for the VM. The students can easily install VirtualBox, and then all they have to do is download the image and run off that.
Secretmapper 10y ago
Acqui-hiring at its finest. Amazon just wants to get Surefour. In all seriousness though, I agree with the general sentiments here. I really hope C9 doesn't get shutdown, it's incredibly nifty and I've found it saving my butt a few times (quick set up for teaching new devs, working on a borrowed machine, working on university* , etc) * ports aside from 80/433 are blocked, so I couldn't push/pull reliably. I ended up uploading everything to c9, then just using it to push/pull.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  CATCHPHRASE!
- chrisper 10y ago
  >ports aside from 80/433 No SSL? Boo! ;)
ebbv 10y ago
Congratulations C9. My team uses C9 literally all day every day, and I hope this only means you'll have more resources at your disposal for faster iteration. My only concern is that this could possibly mean getting rid of SSH Workspaces. Please don't let that happen. SSH Workspaces are required for us, and if that goes away we will have to find another solution.
jay-saint 10y ago
I assume they will also be changing their hosting over to AWS soon, so they can remove this bit from their features page. > VMs hosted on Google Cloud > We know that latency is important and Google knows how to deal with global availability. This is why you will get all the benefits of Googles infrastructure for free.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Seems like a smart move by Amazon if they integrate cloud9 as a standard service. I liked Google's web based IDE when I was a contractor there and for about a year I experimented with using nitrous.io. Right now I am experimenting with using codeanywhere pointed at my own large server instance. It is tremendously convenient having one development environment set up that can be accessed from all of my devices. Hopefully Amazon will raise the bar.
- kminehart 10y ago
  If you're experimenting with cloud-based IDEs you might look at Eclipse Che.
- akhilcacharya 10y ago
  >Google's web based IDE They have one of those?
- Veratyr 10y ago
  Not entirely relevant but Google also has a public IDE of sorts: - https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories/docs/using-source-editor https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories/docs/using-sour... - https://cloud.google.com/shell/docs/features https://cloud.google.com/shell/docs/features Personally I think it's really nice.
- ivan_burazin 10y ago
  Glad to hear it mark, let me know if you need any help with Codeanywhere
adamors 10y ago
I thought for a second Amazon is getting into the esports business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud9_(eSports) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud9_(eSports)
- Siecje 10y ago
  They bought Twitch and Evil Geniuses.
  - adamors 10y ago
    Interesting, I did not know either of that.
  - demonshreder 10y ago
    That's exactly why I thought that they bought the esports team.
- option_greek 10y ago
  And I thought they were into maternity care :) : http://cloudninecare.com/ http://cloudninecare.com/
  - epimetheus 10y ago
    Or even camping and recreation. http://cloud9ranch.com/ http://cloud9ranch.com/ Seriously though, as a user of Cloud9 IDE, I hope this doesn't just get shut down.
- foxhound6 10y ago
  We get it Amazon, you vape. http://vapingcloud9.com/ http://vapingcloud9.com/
- mevile 10y ago
  I don't understand e-sports teams. They're not representative of a geographical region and a "team" can actually have players on multiple games. It's like if the New York Yankees were just the Yankees and also played football, soccer and basketball. I don't understand the convention for how spectators are intended to root for a team. I get that this thing in regular sports for rooting for the team closes to you is arbitrary, but at least it's clear fun way to be a part of it. Also in esports a lot of the event hype feels manufactured and forced. I do like watching esports though, I just think there's so much room for improvement in the whole way the thing is presented.
benten10 10y ago
HA! Just yesterday a friend wanted to bet that they'd be soon acquired by GOOG/MSFT! For any services/products outside Google, Cloud9 is truly the only service I have been really excited about. So much so that I've replied to their various automated emails thanking them for their services, and they've replied back. Love, love, love it so much. It is _so_ simple. I'm glad for the founders and the team, but I really hope Amazon keeps up the amazing support and the product they have.
Rezo 10y ago
Developers are quite conservative of their environment, but a cloud IDE could be awesome. I want to write code on a 2 lb MacBook, with continuous build-as-you-type in the cloud on a fleet of Xeons that have larger CPU caches than my entire project. Have 5, 50, 500 tests that need to run? Run them all in parallel continuously and get immediate red/green feedback in your IDE. Behind the scenes Lambda takes horizontal scaling from minutes/seconds down to milliseconds, so go radically horizontal. I want my editor, exactly as I left it, down to the open tabs and cursor position, on any machine. And pair-programming Google docs simultaneous-edit style, without either party giving up the ability to run/debug the software on their own. What if the FaaS/Lambda lifecycle management was tightly integrated in the IDE? Working on, testing, versioning and publishing a function could be re-imagined in a non-file centric way.
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  Does a cloud IDE work well with a flaky network connection? Any time I see a network-always-on browser-based service, I'm only interested in it if I can run offline and synchronize my state in the background. Which is exactly what I do. I use a local editor on different machines. I sync my projects (git). I get builds and tests farmed out for me automatically (CI). I'm just not dead in the water if I'm on a train, or a plane, or in a car, or my network dies, etc.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    I haven't tried running C9 in a connection that intermittent or totally offline, but it does work well for hopping on/off across networks without losing local state in the browser.
    - jjnoakes 10y ago
      While offline, can you do anything useful though? Or do you just have to wait to come back online somewhere else?
      - tedmiston 10y ago
jjuel 10y ago
I obviously follow eSports too much because this was not the first thing that came to my mind when I saw Cloud9.
- jpreiland 10y ago
  heck, I barely follow eSports at all and I assumed Cloud9 the team when I read the title
- blahi 10y ago
  http://imgur.com/kZlyN61?r http://imgur.com/kZlyN61?r
cityzen 10y ago
Every time i hear the words "acquired by amazon", I think of the amazing Woot video announcing they were... acquired by Amazon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnCHCcveteA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnCHCcveteA
consultutah 10y ago
Very interesting. This could be very similar to what Heroku was in the beginning before they pivoted.
webtechgal 10y ago
I checked a bit, but did not find even a hint of valuation anywhere... Would be interesting to know the deal value.
- webtechgal 10y ago
  Here is what TechCrunch says: "Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but we’re trying to find out. And we’ve also reached out to Amazon for a direct confirmation of the deal." and "Cloud9 had raised just over $5 million from investors that included Accel and Balderton..." https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/amazons-aws-buys-cloud9-to-add-more-development-tools-to-its-web-services-stack/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/amazons-aws-buys-cloud9-to...
pibefision 10y ago
I've discovered C9 while viewing coders working via Livecoding.tv. It's highly interesting how very young developers are using C9, naturally, to code. Something great is happening behind this behavior, it's much more than an online IDE. It feels friction less to develop a website totally online for this kind of developers. Also, for example, I can think many people using PC's on cybercafes prefering C9 to develop. I really recommend to watch it live to understand it.
- piffey 10y ago
  I fail to see how it's advantageous over just having a shell account somewhere free like SDF though. Do young developers just want to interact with everything through the browser?
  - s3r3nity 10y ago
    I used to volunteer teaching coding to youths (teens in highschool, mostly) and I tend to believe this is the case. Though I think it's driven by the fact that it's user-friendly to set-up & use vs. alternatives. Consider the fact that it's super easy to buy a bunch of cheaper Chromebooks or tablets, fire up Nitrous or Cloud9, and now the focus can be on solving problems - rather than set-up/deployment.
    - amelius 10y ago
      > I used to volunteer teaching coding to youths (teens in highschool, mostly) Well, I just tried to sign up to c9 to give it a try, and it asked for credit card information (it is mandatory, even for trying it out). I'm not sure if all the youth has access to a credit card. Also, I don't think it is very user-friendly, but that is beside the point.
      - elecengin 10y ago
        I dont think so... Maybe you were funneled into the free trial? I also use it with my students and it is free...
dschuetz 10y ago
Bye-bye Cloud9. T'was a great product. Now Amazon owns it. Too bad that you've chosen to get Richey-f*cking-Rich rich.
ar0b 10y ago
I've been looking to set up a cloud IDE and was wondering if anyone could compare / offer insight into Cloud9 vs. Eclipse Che?
- TylerJewell 10y ago
  Hi - I am the Eclipse Che project lead. Cloud 9 and Eclipse Che are different beasts. The primary difference is around the definition of a workspace. Eclipse Che workspaces have an encapsulation that include their runtimes and a self-hosted IDE. This, then, allows you to run Eclipse Che as a workspace server on any server or desktop. And since the workspaces are defined with configuration files you can move workspaces from one server to another. The SDK is entirely open source - with no restrictoins, so there is a development model for how to customize both the IDE and the workspace. Since workspaces embed their own runtimes, you can use Dockerfiles to create completely customized stacks. And we'll be supporting composefiles shortly. We built Che this way to encourage ISVs to adopt for ucsotmization while also providing a simple IDE for developers. Codenvy uses Che to build out a distributed system that they host at beta.codenvy.com and also is installable by customers behind their firewall. Cloud 9 is primarily a fully hosted SaaS with their IDE. The IDE features are similar but different, with C9 having more work around collaboration of users within the shared environment. There is more details beyond this - but this is the essence.
  - ar0b 10y ago
    Thank you very much!
kefka 10y ago
Well, here's something I IPFS-ified. It's a Node-Red but in the browser. Called PageNodes http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmSCrZUPkqH4gsncsD7tGXPiFpymsbwmywsHXLDhBtSQ6T/ http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmSCrZUPkqH4gsncsD7tGXPiFpymsbwmywsHXLDh...
shams93 10y ago
Its cool but since i live in emacs having a tiny aws reserved instance for development is a cheap way to get a dedicated linux machine connected to the web 24/7
pmarreck 10y ago
So how do I log into my cloud9 account, now? I was using it sporadically and actually paid for the non-free version
napperjabber 10y ago
Cool, now we might have a better API/Dev-Env for things like AWS Lambda and such.
mgrennan 10y ago
One step closer to just Code And Run (CAR). I think CAR is how development will be done in the future. (Literally tomorrow)
- namenotrequired 10y ago
  > mgrennan 23 hours ago > (Literally tomorrow) Oh ok... I'll check back in an hour :)
agmcleod 10y ago
It definitely does a lot more than when I first looked into it. Someone tuesday night was trying to get a bootstrap repo using webpack dev server on cloud9. She had a local node install, so i had her use that instead, simply because I wasn't familiar with c9. She showed me her node+react app fully running on it though, which I thought was pretty damn cool.
santiagobasulto 10y ago
We make heavy use of C9 for our code academy. I hope they don't shut it down :(
kakisoop 10y ago
Any IDE that doesn't support Ctrl+W, fk you IDE!!!!
nocman 10y ago
Interesting. I wonder if there will be any trademark issues with the IT consulting company that uses the same name ( http://cloud9.net http://cloud9.net ).
- skizm 10y ago
  Or the e-sports team: http://cloud9.gg/ http://cloud9.gg/
gd2 10y ago
I like this. When testing my cloud9 account I thought it was a still rough edged proto-type of the future. I wasn't ready to change my workflow, but thought very interesting. Congratulations to the cloud9 team.
mrmch 10y ago
For running a developer event like BattleSnake.io, C9 is amazing. After a few years of headaches trying to help students get their local dev environments setup, we started recommending Cloud9 to all Students. Definitely the way of the future.
- 8note 10y ago
  battlesnakes was soo fun this year! though part of my team spent most of the time in the food lines, which was a bit of a setback:P
  - mrmch 10y ago
    Haha, we'll work on better food line throughput next year :)
kin 10y ago
Congrats to the team! My first node.js experience was with Cloud9 IDE and the experience was great. I built a real-time multiplayer Bomberman clone extremely fast and it definitely helped me get hired in my past two jobs.
benologist 10y ago
C9 is my favorite web IDE. Being open source made it so much better than their competitors because you could install it locally to take advantage of your own hardware. It's really cool that they got acquired vs the fleet of mostly proprietary alternatives.
- e12e 10y ago
  I tried looking at the github project - can you self-host it in the sense that you could set it up on a server in your home, and use it without needing access to the Internet? I suppose it might be more clear if I install and run the "core" - but there was no mention of docker or vm support, nor root access?
  - saaadhu 10y ago
    Yes - I've run it locally. No docker/vm support was there though - I ended up running it the whole thing inside a docker container.
  - benologist 10y ago
    Yes, I automated setup here for Chromebooks running crouton (Ubuntu ~14.04) as an example - https://github.com/benlowry/chromeos-dev-setup/blob/master/setup.sh#L129 https://github.com/benlowry/chromeos-dev-setup/blob/master/s...
nerdcity 10y ago
Oh. Not the esports organization.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
limeyy 10y ago
Would I be able to run Sublime there?
martin-adams 10y ago
I absolutely love the Cloud9 IDE. I've been using the source download to host it directly on my development VM as well as in the cloud (using Digital Ocean and CloudAtCost). The editor is really nice and I absolutely love the ease of window snapping and tailing log files using the command line panel. Before Cloud9 I used PHP Storm. Still a very good editor, but I love editing files on cloud hosted machines as I can move from desktop to desktop and continue right where I left off. Here's a script reference that I use to set it up: https://github.com/medatech/ubuntu-setup-scripts/blob/master/setup-cloud9.sh https://github.com/medatech/ubuntu-setup-scripts/blob/master...
shepardrtc 10y ago
This will be a great way to connect to individual EC2 instances. You'll be able to automatically get a shell, a tree file browser, and a text editor all in one webpage without have to fiddle with anything.
rdslw 10y ago
That makes me smiling over memories of running X client in 1997 over ssh to X server on some uni host. That was remote VM, some of the younger ones think are invented 20 years later ;)
supergeek133 10y ago
I've used Nitrous and Cloud9 both quite a bit... I tend to prefer C9 for Web Dev and Nitrous for full stack Ruby dev. Nice to see these products taking off from a pure cost perspective, I can buy a chromebook and do development as long as I have an internet connection.
pbreit 10y ago
I've always been intrigued by Cloud9 and its ilk but can't figure out what is the best thing to do on it. What are some great use cases for this type of tool? Is it mainly for quick testing or temporary stuff? Or would you use it for something longer term? Indie developer or team?
- genericacct 10y ago
  Anything web-related, whether you are an individual or a team. I use it solo but the real-time collaboration and builtin chat must be great for teams.
shrugger2 10y ago
Are there any new alternatives to c9? I used codebox before they shut it down, and really liked it. I like the flexibility of having a full-blown Ubuntu system to use as I develop, but the browser overhead of the editors for these things almost makes it not worth it. C9 was decent, but not at all ideal. I'd love to see a simple, bare-bones "just type text" editor, paired with a bare-bones VPS that I could tinker with as I like.
lucaspottersky 10y ago
none of these Cloud IDEs support docker-based projects, at least for now. that's a bummer for me. I spent a whole week trying Cloud9, Nitrous and Eclipse-che. Pros: good for teaching, colaboration, toy projects. Cons: still a few years behind any decent IDE.
- TylerJewell 10y ago
  Why do you say that Eclipse Che doesn't support docker-based projects? You can run Che in privileged mode, which lets your Docker workspace build and run other Docker projects. I am the Che project lead.
netcraft 10y ago
I wonder if this is at all related to their version of google cloud shell?
rjurney 10y ago
I started using Cloud9 a few weeks ago, and my productivity running an interactive visualization app has gone way up. Cloud9 has the best autocomplete ever, and it 'just works' after you do a little environment setup in your included ubuntu instance. Any concerns I had were not a problem, like every day or two the cloud9 window crashes, but when it reopens the cursor is in the exact same place and all state is maintained. I don't even get that locally across reboots! If this service doesn't keep running I will chain myself naked to the front doors of amazon's offices and won't let anyone in until they agree to bring back cloud9. It would seem to have big potential with the rest of amazon's services. My stack (if you're curious): JRuby / Sinatra, d3.js. Keeps it lean. Oh, my one gripe! I keep the IDE window full size, so whenever I switch applications and tab back to Chrome... my full sized window is gone. I have to select window -> my tab, and this SUCKS. IT SUCKS. I wish this were wrapped in a little 'chrome as an app' application.
- isaacn 10y ago
  If you're on a mac, this might work for you: http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/
  - rjurney 10y ago
    You are the MAN!
terda12 10y ago
I have not used c9 yet so I can't attest to how good it is, but I've seen a lot of beginner webdevs use c9 and lots of them only have good things to say about it. So let's hope amazon doesn't ruin things here.
Nemant 10y ago
Welcome to the Amazon sweatshop.
greenspot 10y ago
Started with Cloud9, moved to Nitrous and ended with a server with vim + tmux on DigitalOcean as my instant-on IDE from everywhere. I find this superior than former ones: cheaper, more powerful, more flexible and somehow faster/more adjustable for my needs. Still Cloud9 and Nitrous were my gateway drugs for cloud coding.
sorenjan 10y ago
Does anybody else think that Microsoft might build a similar web based Visual Studio soon? They already have their Visual Studio Code that's built with web tech, and a bunch of web based Office apps. Combine that with Azure and they basically have the best position in the market if they so choose. I'd probably still prefer the native VS though.
caub 10y ago
also.. https://community.c9.io/t/credit-card-required-for-free-account/7434 https://community.c9.io/t/credit-card-required-for-free-acco...
bochenski 10y ago
I used this service a few years back and am pleased to see it's been successfully acquired.

627 points by welder 10y ago

enitihas 10y ago

Does anyone know the reasons behind this acquisition?

kimmshibal 10y ago
AWS
sudhirj 10y ago
Probably a play by AWS to have a full IDE in the cloud, maybe with auto deploy to lambda or ECS.
0xmohit 10y ago
> Does anyone know the reasons behind this acquisition? One can make guesses: - expanding into new verticals - potentially "enabling" Cloud9 users to become users of other AWS services - world domination!
KuiN 10y ago
The current editor for AWS Lambda functions is nothing to write home about and has some really severe limitations; for example you're unable to edit any code that uses more than 1 file (that has to be uploaded in a zip every time). Having a high quality editor built into Lambda would make it so much easier to work with.
- maratd 10y ago
  This doesn't make sense? The editor is open source. You can install it on your computer right now. They even provide instructions on how to do it. https://github.com/c9/core https://github.com/c9/core They can implement it without buying the company. Even if the license doesn't allow it, the license for ACE surely does and ACE is the meat of the editor. https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace Maybe they want the team because they want to move the product in a certain direction? I don't know.
  - purplerabbit 10y ago
    He means the AWS Console editor for Lambda functions.

petercooper 10y ago

Once fully integrated with AWS, this could offer a rather exciting, low friction way to work on the platform. Using Cloud9 to build, test, and deploy Lambda functions from a single interface with all the auth stuff dealt with automatically.. you could have some powerful APIs running in the cloud very quickly. (Maybe there's even a play for getting this stuff into the hands of non-engineering employees. Build the "Excel" of APIs, if you will?)

maxaf 10y ago
The last thing this world needs is mission-critical software edited willy-nilly through a "convenient" web browser interface. We as an industry can barely put our pants on in the morning on the best of days, and now this.
- FLGMwt 10y ago
  I'll counter with the suggestion that nothing about how you access an editor should impact your SCM process. Cloud9 has a terminal to run SCM tools and a light-featured Git UI if that's your thing.
  - maxaf 10y ago
    You're right - in an ideal world. Somehow the drive for adoption and market share seems to counter such common sense, resulting in the "get started quick" camp running production systems.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ebbv 10y ago
  Hopefully your C9 workspace is on a development server instead of on a production one....
- ben_jones 10y ago
  He or she who has not edited production code or configurations with vim/emacs/nano cast the first stone.

metaos 10y ago

the first time i tried node.js was using cloud9. what a sad sad day to see them fall onto the black list.

arahaya 10y ago

The best cloud IDE now with the biggest cloud service. little scary but very interesting at the same time

jecyll 10y ago
Amazon works coniniously to become the provider for everything you can imagine
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Even the best job? Because working for them was the worst work environment I ever experienced in 15 years of employment as a software development engineer. Amazon may have some cheap prices and their customer service has the margins available to offer refunds/replacements quickly. But that all is easy guise. Amazon is rotten inside. Each product team does whatever it wants. So how long can the exterior hold a toxic spill? Those AWS dashboard icons look really nice. Makes everything look so organized and contiguous. But each of those services is done in different languages, different frameworks, by different teams, with whatever crap will hold the leaks and terrible patchwork programming by their average employee who will on average, stay less than a year. The churn is real.
  - jwoah12 10y ago
    Not sure what team you were on, but in my time at Amazon I never saw a company whose teams were more in-sync in terms of process, tools, frameworks, languages, etc. Say what you will about the work environment, but it's saying something that with the churn you mention (which is real), they are still able to deliver consistently. It's a well-oiled machine.
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      I worked for AWS. I wont say much more. The average employee churn stats speak for themselves. Amazon burns folks out. Uses them up. Not like the valley at all. Leadership principles [1] door desks, bezos cult. [1] https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/p34qgjcv93n37yd https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/p34qgjcv93n37yd

spriggan3 10y ago

I hope they won't be shut down in 6 month , C9 is handy when it comes to trying new techs quickly.

0xmohit 10y ago
C9 only adds to existing AWS offerings. Don't see a reason that it'd be shut down.
- hueving 10y ago
  If it's basically an acquihire then that's exactly what happens. Remember sparrow?
  - 0xmohit 10y ago
    The point was that C9 offerings are likely to continue. The branding might change.
    - Cederfjard 10y ago
      That was your original point, but the person replying to you made a counterargument to your assertion that you don't see any reason for them to discontinue the service - that maybe they are after the team and their knowledge, rather than the product. Maybe Amazon want them working on something else.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Google seems more aggressive about shuttering acquired businesses than Amazon.
  - discodave 10y ago
    Remember Twitch, IMDB, Zappos... Amazon doesn't have a history of aqui-hires. Sure, they are getting some talent but since there's no obvious AWS competitor to C9 they would be crazy to shut it down.
snuxoll 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

amelius 10y ago

From their homepage: > Cloud9 combines a powerful online code editor with a full Ubuntu workspace in the cloud This is the first thing I see on loading their website. Is this their main selling point? Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It works perfectly fine on my local machine, and I could even automate syncing if I wanted. Also, I could just ssh into my server and start an editor there. > Build WordPress, Django and Rails websites and test in 300+ browser/OS combinations. Is this automated? Because who would want to test 300+ browser/OS combinations manually?

vertex-four 10y ago
> Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? I have a handful of devices which I like programming from - I use Eclipse Che (the tech behind Codenvy Beta, similar to Cloud9) for some of my projects and I have exactly the same environment on all of them. There's other ways to accomplish this - sharing dotfiles between machines and using Docker for environments - but a cloud IDE makes it a bit easier and less hassle to set up.
czechdeveloper 10y ago
> Why does my editor need to be "in the cloud"? It does not HAVE to be. But it is another option and great one at certain situations. Such as showing someone how to start programming, working on small project without having to deal with setup time etc. I really like it actually. It's not meant to be replacement of local machine IDEs.
- ksafranski 10y ago
  I don't know how it's "not meant to be a replacement of local machine IDEs", I think that depends on the person using it. I've been on Cloud9 for all my work (day job and freelance) for several years now and honestly can't imagine not using a web-based IDE.
  - czechdeveloper 10y ago
    You are right. I was thinking about my previous statement later on and realized, that it is meant and is able to fully replace standard IDEs. What I meant was more like "you can keep your IDE if you like it" type of think.

hyperdeficit 10y ago

I really hope that the Cloud9 service keeps running, and maintains the free version that it currently provides. I have been using Cloud9 with the Michael Hartl Rails Tutorial to teach new programmers the basics of programming with Ruby and Rails and it has greatly reduced the friction for them to start learning. In previous classes we had the students setup a Ruby and Rails environment on their own systems and not only did that take multiple sessions to get setup, but then we were dealing with environment differences that took the focus away from the basics of learning Ruby nearly every session.

jozan 10y ago
Wouldn't virtual machine basically do the same thing? I've taken some classes where teacher gave us an image where everything was already installed and configured. Everything went smoothly. However, Cloud9 is much more convenient since it runs entirely on browser but VM solution could work in case C9 discontinues its free tier.
- jswny 10y ago
  Agreed. In a lot of my college courses, the professors provide a VM which is completely set up for development. That means that anyone who just wants to start programming can use the VM while everyone else who wants to setup their local environment can do that. I think it's a great solution.
  - preek 10y ago
    I'm a lecturer myself and am curious: How do your lecturers deal with the situation that students have at least three different operating systems (LINUX, Mac, Windows)? Setting up a VM will make 2/3rds cringe in my experience - setting up three VMs is a lot of work.
    - jswny 10y ago
      I'd say that most students running Linux opt to install their own development environment so installing the VM for them really isn't an issue. Either way, it's much easier for the professor to spend a class showing people how to install VirtualBox, and then the class VM than showing them how to install an entire development environment locally. Here's how it works: the professor prepares an Ubuntu VM with the entire development environment set up inside it, and then just provides the image link for the VM. The students can easily install VirtualBox, and then all they have to do is download the image and run off that.

Secretmapper 10y ago

Acqui-hiring at its finest. Amazon just wants to get Surefour. In all seriousness though, I agree with the general sentiments here. I really hope C9 doesn't get shutdown, it's incredibly nifty and I've found it saving my butt a few times (quick set up for teaching new devs, working on a borrowed machine, working on university* , etc) * ports aside from 80/433 are blocked, so I couldn't push/pull reliably. I ended up uploading everything to c9, then just using it to push/pull.

ben_jones 10y ago
CATCHPHRASE!
chrisper 10y ago
>ports aside from 80/433 No SSL? Boo! ;)

ebbv 10y ago

Congratulations C9. My team uses C9 literally all day every day, and I hope this only means you'll have more resources at your disposal for faster iteration. My only concern is that this could possibly mean getting rid of SSH Workspaces. Please don't let that happen. SSH Workspaces are required for us, and if that goes away we will have to find another solution.

jay-saint 10y ago

I assume they will also be changing their hosting over to AWS soon, so they can remove this bit from their features page. > VMs hosted on Google Cloud > We know that latency is important and Google knows how to deal with global availability. This is why you will get all the benefits of Googles infrastructure for free.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

Seems like a smart move by Amazon if they integrate cloud9 as a standard service. I liked Google's web based IDE when I was a contractor there and for about a year I experimented with using nitrous.io. Right now I am experimenting with using codeanywhere pointed at my own large server instance. It is tremendously convenient having one development environment set up that can be accessed from all of my devices. Hopefully Amazon will raise the bar.

kminehart 10y ago
If you're experimenting with cloud-based IDEs you might look at Eclipse Che.
akhilcacharya 10y ago
>Google's web based IDE They have one of those?
Veratyr 10y ago
Not entirely relevant but Google also has a public IDE of sorts: - https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories/docs/using-source-editor https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories/docs/using-sour... - https://cloud.google.com/shell/docs/features https://cloud.google.com/shell/docs/features Personally I think it's really nice.
ivan_burazin 10y ago
Glad to hear it mark, let me know if you need any help with Codeanywhere

adamors 10y ago

I thought for a second Amazon is getting into the esports business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud9_(eSports) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud9_(eSports)

Siecje 10y ago
They bought Twitch and Evil Geniuses.
- adamors 10y ago
  Interesting, I did not know either of that.
- demonshreder 10y ago
  That's exactly why I thought that they bought the esports team.
option_greek 10y ago
And I thought they were into maternity care :) : http://cloudninecare.com/ http://cloudninecare.com/
- epimetheus 10y ago
  Or even camping and recreation. http://cloud9ranch.com/ http://cloud9ranch.com/ Seriously though, as a user of Cloud9 IDE, I hope this doesn't just get shut down.
foxhound6 10y ago
We get it Amazon, you vape. http://vapingcloud9.com/ http://vapingcloud9.com/
mevile 10y ago
I don't understand e-sports teams. They're not representative of a geographical region and a "team" can actually have players on multiple games. It's like if the New York Yankees were just the Yankees and also played football, soccer and basketball. I don't understand the convention for how spectators are intended to root for a team. I get that this thing in regular sports for rooting for the team closes to you is arbitrary, but at least it's clear fun way to be a part of it. Also in esports a lot of the event hype feels manufactured and forced. I do like watching esports though, I just think there's so much room for improvement in the whole way the thing is presented.

benten10 10y ago

HA! Just yesterday a friend wanted to bet that they'd be soon acquired by GOOG/MSFT! For any services/products outside Google, Cloud9 is truly the only service I have been really excited about. So much so that I've replied to their various automated emails thanking them for their services, and they've replied back. Love, love, love it so much. It is _so_ simple. I'm glad for the founders and the team, but I really hope Amazon keeps up the amazing support and the product they have.

Rezo 10y ago

Developers are quite conservative of their environment, but a cloud IDE could be awesome. I want to write code on a 2 lb MacBook, with continuous build-as-you-type in the cloud on a fleet of Xeons that have larger CPU caches than my entire project. Have 5, 50, 500 tests that need to run? Run them all in parallel continuously and get immediate red/green feedback in your IDE. Behind the scenes Lambda takes horizontal scaling from minutes/seconds down to milliseconds, so go radically horizontal. I want my editor, exactly as I left it, down to the open tabs and cursor position, on any machine. And pair-programming Google docs simultaneous-edit style, without either party giving up the ability to run/debug the software on their own. What if the FaaS/Lambda lifecycle management was tightly integrated in the IDE? Working on, testing, versioning and publishing a function could be re-imagined in a non-file centric way.

jjnoakes 10y ago
Does a cloud IDE work well with a flaky network connection? Any time I see a network-always-on browser-based service, I'm only interested in it if I can run offline and synchronize my state in the background. Which is exactly what I do. I use a local editor on different machines. I sync my projects (git). I get builds and tests farmed out for me automatically (CI). I'm just not dead in the water if I'm on a train, or a plane, or in a car, or my network dies, etc.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  I haven't tried running C9 in a connection that intermittent or totally offline, but it does work well for hopping on/off across networks without losing local state in the browser.
  - jjnoakes 10y ago
    While offline, can you do anything useful though? Or do you just have to wait to come back online somewhere else?
    - tedmiston 10y ago

jjuel 10y ago

I obviously follow eSports too much because this was not the first thing that came to my mind when I saw Cloud9.

jpreiland 10y ago
heck, I barely follow eSports at all and I assumed Cloud9 the team when I read the title
blahi 10y ago
http://imgur.com/kZlyN61?r http://imgur.com/kZlyN61?r

cityzen 10y ago

Every time i hear the words "acquired by amazon", I think of the amazing Woot video announcing they were... acquired by Amazon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnCHCcveteA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnCHCcveteA

consultutah 10y ago

Very interesting. This could be very similar to what Heroku was in the beginning before they pivoted.

webtechgal 10y ago

I checked a bit, but did not find even a hint of valuation anywhere... Would be interesting to know the deal value.

webtechgal 10y ago
Here is what TechCrunch says: "Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but we’re trying to find out. And we’ve also reached out to Amazon for a direct confirmation of the deal." and "Cloud9 had raised just over $5 million from investors that included Accel and Balderton..." https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/amazons-aws-buys-cloud9-to-add-more-development-tools-to-its-web-services-stack/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/amazons-aws-buys-cloud9-to...

pibefision 10y ago

I've discovered C9 while viewing coders working via Livecoding.tv. It's highly interesting how very young developers are using C9, naturally, to code. Something great is happening behind this behavior, it's much more than an online IDE. It feels friction less to develop a website totally online for this kind of developers. Also, for example, I can think many people using PC's on cybercafes prefering C9 to develop. I really recommend to watch it live to understand it.

piffey 10y ago
I fail to see how it's advantageous over just having a shell account somewhere free like SDF though. Do young developers just want to interact with everything through the browser?
- s3r3nity 10y ago
  I used to volunteer teaching coding to youths (teens in highschool, mostly) and I tend to believe this is the case. Though I think it's driven by the fact that it's user-friendly to set-up & use vs. alternatives. Consider the fact that it's super easy to buy a bunch of cheaper Chromebooks or tablets, fire up Nitrous or Cloud9, and now the focus can be on solving problems - rather than set-up/deployment.
  - amelius 10y ago
    > I used to volunteer teaching coding to youths (teens in highschool, mostly) Well, I just tried to sign up to c9 to give it a try, and it asked for credit card information (it is mandatory, even for trying it out). I'm not sure if all the youth has access to a credit card. Also, I don't think it is very user-friendly, but that is beside the point.
    - elecengin 10y ago
      I dont think so... Maybe you were funneled into the free trial? I also use it with my students and it is free...

dschuetz 10y ago

Bye-bye Cloud9. T'was a great product. Now Amazon owns it. Too bad that you've chosen to get Richey-f*cking-Rich rich.

ar0b 10y ago

I've been looking to set up a cloud IDE and was wondering if anyone could compare / offer insight into Cloud9 vs. Eclipse Che?

TylerJewell 10y ago
Hi - I am the Eclipse Che project lead. Cloud 9 and Eclipse Che are different beasts. The primary difference is around the definition of a workspace. Eclipse Che workspaces have an encapsulation that include their runtimes and a self-hosted IDE. This, then, allows you to run Eclipse Che as a workspace server on any server or desktop. And since the workspaces are defined with configuration files you can move workspaces from one server to another. The SDK is entirely open source - with no restrictoins, so there is a development model for how to customize both the IDE and the workspace. Since workspaces embed their own runtimes, you can use Dockerfiles to create completely customized stacks. And we'll be supporting composefiles shortly. We built Che this way to encourage ISVs to adopt for ucsotmization while also providing a simple IDE for developers. Codenvy uses Che to build out a distributed system that they host at beta.codenvy.com and also is installable by customers behind their firewall. Cloud 9 is primarily a fully hosted SaaS with their IDE. The IDE features are similar but different, with C9 having more work around collaboration of users within the shared environment. There is more details beyond this - but this is the essence.
- ar0b 10y ago
  Thank you very much!

kefka 10y ago

Well, here's something I IPFS-ified. It's a Node-Red but in the browser. Called PageNodes http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmSCrZUPkqH4gsncsD7tGXPiFpymsbwmywsHXLDhBtSQ6T/ http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmSCrZUPkqH4gsncsD7tGXPiFpymsbwmywsHXLDh...

shams93 10y ago

Its cool but since i live in emacs having a tiny aws reserved instance for development is a cheap way to get a dedicated linux machine connected to the web 24/7

pmarreck 10y ago

So how do I log into my cloud9 account, now? I was using it sporadically and actually paid for the non-free version

napperjabber 10y ago

Cool, now we might have a better API/Dev-Env for things like AWS Lambda and such.

mgrennan 10y ago

One step closer to just Code And Run (CAR). I think CAR is how development will be done in the future. (Literally tomorrow)

namenotrequired 10y ago
> mgrennan 23 hours ago > (Literally tomorrow) Oh ok... I'll check back in an hour :)

agmcleod 10y ago

It definitely does a lot more than when I first looked into it. Someone tuesday night was trying to get a bootstrap repo using webpack dev server on cloud9. She had a local node install, so i had her use that instead, simply because I wasn't familiar with c9. She showed me her node+react app fully running on it though, which I thought was pretty damn cool.

santiagobasulto 10y ago

We make heavy use of C9 for our code academy. I hope they don't shut it down :(

kakisoop 10y ago

Any IDE that doesn't support Ctrl+W, fk you IDE!!!!

nocman 10y ago

Interesting. I wonder if there will be any trademark issues with the IT consulting company that uses the same name ( http://cloud9.net http://cloud9.net ).

skizm 10y ago
Or the e-sports team: http://cloud9.gg/ http://cloud9.gg/

gd2 10y ago

I like this. When testing my cloud9 account I thought it was a still rough edged proto-type of the future. I wasn't ready to change my workflow, but thought very interesting. Congratulations to the cloud9 team.

mrmch 10y ago

For running a developer event like BattleSnake.io, C9 is amazing. After a few years of headaches trying to help students get their local dev environments setup, we started recommending Cloud9 to all Students. Definitely the way of the future.

8note 10y ago
battlesnakes was soo fun this year! though part of my team spent most of the time in the food lines, which was a bit of a setback:P
- mrmch 10y ago
  Haha, we'll work on better food line throughput next year :)

kin 10y ago

Congrats to the team! My first node.js experience was with Cloud9 IDE and the experience was great. I built a real-time multiplayer Bomberman clone extremely fast and it definitely helped me get hired in my past two jobs.

benologist 10y ago

C9 is my favorite web IDE. Being open source made it so much better than their competitors because you could install it locally to take advantage of your own hardware. It's really cool that they got acquired vs the fleet of mostly proprietary alternatives.

e12e 10y ago
I tried looking at the github project - can you self-host it in the sense that you could set it up on a server in your home, and use it without needing access to the Internet? I suppose it might be more clear if I install and run the "core" - but there was no mention of docker or vm support, nor root access?
- saaadhu 10y ago
  Yes - I've run it locally. No docker/vm support was there though - I ended up running it the whole thing inside a docker container.
- benologist 10y ago
  Yes, I automated setup here for Chromebooks running crouton (Ubuntu ~14.04) as an example - https://github.com/benlowry/chromeos-dev-setup/blob/master/setup.sh#L129 https://github.com/benlowry/chromeos-dev-setup/blob/master/s...

nerdcity 10y ago

Oh. Not the esports organization.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

limeyy 10y ago

Would I be able to run Sublime there?

martin-adams 10y ago

I absolutely love the Cloud9 IDE. I've been using the source download to host it directly on my development VM as well as in the cloud (using Digital Ocean and CloudAtCost). The editor is really nice and I absolutely love the ease of window snapping and tailing log files using the command line panel. Before Cloud9 I used PHP Storm. Still a very good editor, but I love editing files on cloud hosted machines as I can move from desktop to desktop and continue right where I left off. Here's a script reference that I use to set it up: https://github.com/medatech/ubuntu-setup-scripts/blob/master/setup-cloud9.sh https://github.com/medatech/ubuntu-setup-scripts/blob/master...

shepardrtc 10y ago

This will be a great way to connect to individual EC2 instances. You'll be able to automatically get a shell, a tree file browser, and a text editor all in one webpage without have to fiddle with anything.

rdslw 10y ago

That makes me smiling over memories of running X client in 1997 over ssh to X server on some uni host. That was remote VM, some of the younger ones think are invented 20 years later ;)

supergeek133 10y ago

I've used Nitrous and Cloud9 both quite a bit... I tend to prefer C9 for Web Dev and Nitrous for full stack Ruby dev. Nice to see these products taking off from a pure cost perspective, I can buy a chromebook and do development as long as I have an internet connection.

pbreit 10y ago

I've always been intrigued by Cloud9 and its ilk but can't figure out what is the best thing to do on it. What are some great use cases for this type of tool? Is it mainly for quick testing or temporary stuff? Or would you use it for something longer term? Indie developer or team?

genericacct 10y ago
Anything web-related, whether you are an individual or a team. I use it solo but the real-time collaboration and builtin chat must be great for teams.

shrugger2 10y ago

Are there any new alternatives to c9? I used codebox before they shut it down, and really liked it. I like the flexibility of having a full-blown Ubuntu system to use as I develop, but the browser overhead of the editors for these things almost makes it not worth it. C9 was decent, but not at all ideal. I'd love to see a simple, bare-bones "just type text" editor, paired with a bare-bones VPS that I could tinker with as I like.

lucaspottersky 10y ago

none of these Cloud IDEs support docker-based projects, at least for now. that's a bummer for me. I spent a whole week trying Cloud9, Nitrous and Eclipse-che. Pros: good for teaching, colaboration, toy projects. Cons: still a few years behind any decent IDE.

TylerJewell 10y ago
Why do you say that Eclipse Che doesn't support docker-based projects? You can run Che in privileged mode, which lets your Docker workspace build and run other Docker projects. I am the Che project lead.

netcraft 10y ago

I wonder if this is at all related to their version of google cloud shell?

rjurney 10y ago

I started using Cloud9 a few weeks ago, and my productivity running an interactive visualization app has gone way up. Cloud9 has the best autocomplete ever, and it 'just works' after you do a little environment setup in your included ubuntu instance. Any concerns I had were not a problem, like every day or two the cloud9 window crashes, but when it reopens the cursor is in the exact same place and all state is maintained. I don't even get that locally across reboots! If this service doesn't keep running I will chain myself naked to the front doors of amazon's offices and won't let anyone in until they agree to bring back cloud9. It would seem to have big potential with the rest of amazon's services. My stack (if you're curious): JRuby / Sinatra, d3.js. Keeps it lean. Oh, my one gripe! I keep the IDE window full size, so whenever I switch applications and tab back to Chrome... my full sized window is gone. I have to select window -> my tab, and this SUCKS. IT SUCKS. I wish this were wrapped in a little 'chrome as an app' application.

isaacn 10y ago
If you're on a mac, this might work for you: http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/
- rjurney 10y ago
  You are the MAN!

terda12 10y ago

I have not used c9 yet so I can't attest to how good it is, but I've seen a lot of beginner webdevs use c9 and lots of them only have good things to say about it. So let's hope amazon doesn't ruin things here.

Nemant 10y ago

Welcome to the Amazon sweatshop.

greenspot 10y ago

Started with Cloud9, moved to Nitrous and ended with a server with vim + tmux on DigitalOcean as my instant-on IDE from everywhere. I find this superior than former ones: cheaper, more powerful, more flexible and somehow faster/more adjustable for my needs. Still Cloud9 and Nitrous were my gateway drugs for cloud coding.

sorenjan 10y ago

Does anybody else think that Microsoft might build a similar web based Visual Studio soon? They already have their Visual Studio Code that's built with web tech, and a bunch of web based Office apps. Combine that with Azure and they basically have the best position in the market if they so choose. I'd probably still prefer the native VS though.

caub 10y ago

also.. https://community.c9.io/t/credit-card-required-for-free-account/7434 https://community.c9.io/t/credit-card-required-for-free-acco...

bochenski 10y ago

I used this service a few years back and am pleased to see it's been successfully acquired.